Shortly after he was elected mayor, Rob Ford’s wife sought to curb her husband’s drug-use, confiding in a man that he is “not giving up the blow,” according to a new book chronicling the life of the infamous chief magistrate.

The details are contained in Crazy Town: The Rob Ford Story, written by Robyn Doolittle, one of two Toronto Star reporters to view a video apparently showing the mayor smoking a crack pipe. The book will be released Monday.

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“He thinks that he, oh, you know, ‘I’ll get off the pills, but I’m not giving up the blow.'” She worried it could “ruin” his life.

Ms. Doolittle heard the conversation between Renata Ford and “John” on a recording. According to the book, Renata Ford didn’t know her conversation was being recorded.

This confidant told Renata Ford about “methadone, withdrawal symptoms and clinics that will be discreet,” Crazy Town states.

Mayor Ford’s lawyer, Dennis Morris, said he spoke to Renata Ford about the alleged conversation detailed in Crazy Town and said that she denies it happened.

“People can say whatever they want,” he said. “I spoke to Renata and basically she said ‘I have very few friends, I don’t go to Tim Hortons and hang out with guys in a parking lot, so definitely I never said that, I was never in that parking lot.”

He said he did not probe whether she ever had any concerns about her husband’s drug use.

“I know them both. I’ve had many conversations with her and she does pooh-pooh this as a means of trying to embarrass him and minimize him as a mayor,” said Mr. Morris. “He acknowledges now that he does have some difficulties in terms of substance abuse and that’s alcohol,” he added, but the lawyer maintains the mayor has “turned over a new leaf.”

“He may have indulged on occasion with alcohol consumption but in terms of drugs, I don’t think that he ever has brought any into his home, consumed any in his home, and from what I gather she is at home with the kids 90% of the time,” said Mr. Morris.

Amin Massoudi, the mayor’s press secretary, declined to comment on the report about Renata Ford.

On Friday night and early Saturday morning, Mayor Ford made news across the country in Vancouver when he was reportedly ticketed for jaywalking. He has denied claims of public intoxication.

Mayor Rob Ford didn’t respond to questions Friday about why police were dispatched to his home in the summer on a “domestic assault” call — and it looks like he is done talking with the media about his personal travails.

“At this time, the mayor is focussing on what the people of Toronto elected him to do – provide excellent customer service, while continuing to look for ways to save the taxpayers’ money,” read a statement from his new chief of staff, Dan Jacobs, in response to the latest request from the National Post for a sit-down interview with Mayor Ford.

Mayor Ford went on a television media blitz after city council stripped him of most of his powers on Monday, conducting interviews with major Canadian and American broadcasters. He has not conducted an in-depth interview with major Canadian dailies, however.

Tyler Anderson / National PostAlexander Lisi leaves Old City Hall Courthouse after a bail hearing on charges of drug trafficking and other offences, in Toronto, Ontario, October 2, 2013

“While the mayor will still be speaking to the press as time allows, it will be to respond to specific questions related to policy, and matters of city business.”

A court document ordered released this month by a judge states that police received a “domestic assault” call from Mayor Ford’s house in the midst of an extensive surveillance investigation that led to drug and extortion charges against Alexander Lisi, a friend of the chief magistrate. No one was charged in the domestic call.

If the lengthy police document that was used to obtain search warrants for two residential addresses, a dry cleaner and a car contains details about what happened at the mayor’s home in Etobicoke, they are among censored passages. The public sections only state that the call came in on Aug. 27 2013, at 6:51 p.m. A flurry of calls then ensued between Lisi, the man police had been surveilling, and phone numbers associated with Mayor Ford, including a cell listed to family label business Deco, the Mayor’s OnStar number and David Price, his former director of operations and logistics.

Matthew Sherwood for National PostJamshid Bahrami, owner of Richview Cleaners, speaks about his arrest and the drug charges against him, at his shop in Etobicoke on Friday, October 4, 2013. Bahrami was arrested along with Sandro Lisi, Mayor Rob Ford's friend and occasional driver.

Undercover officers had been watching Richview Cleaners, owned by Jamshid Bahrami, who has also been charged with drug trafficking and other offences stemming from a sting operation. The court documents allege that Mr. Bahrami, who has denied wrongdoing, identified Lisi as a supplier of marijuana to an undercover officer. He also allegedly tells the officer that another man, Dan, who operates a jewellery store in the same plaza is a “connect.” None of the allegations have been tested in court.

Officers kept watch on the dry cleaners, expecting Lisi to show up, “however these arrangements were disrupted by a radio call to the mayor’s house.”

Mark Pugash, a spokesman for Toronto police, said privacy reasons prevented him from commenting on the incident. Mayor Ford was charged in 2008 with assaulting and uttering death threats against his wife, Renata Ford, but the charges were dropped due to “inconsistencies” in Mrs. Ford’s statement.

What a week it was for the Planning Department! Chris Selley, Matt Gurney, and NOW‘s Jonathan Goldsbie get down and dirty on the Zoning Byl– no, just kidding.

Selley: There must be quite the pile forming on Toronto Star Public Editor Kathy English’s desk. She has yet to address the matter of her paper paying $5,000 for the video of Rob Ford in a state of … uh, severe agitation, despite a clearly stated policy that “the Star does not pay for information.” And now the Star has dragged Renata Ford, Rob’s wife, into the fray: Noting that the Mayor had himself placed her front and centre during his cunnilingus-related apology last week, Rosie DiManno regaled us with allegations of a belligerently intoxicated Renata Ford, and of injuries that could conceivably be the result of domestic abuse. The questions for journalism’s Big Thinkers now are: Should that one appearance by Renata Ford have been enough to make her own troubles “fair game”? And, was any of the information in the piece in the all-important public interest? And, that aside, was a snarky Rosie DiManno column — reserved by her standards, but still — the best way to reveal this information to us?

Gurney: I have serious concerns about the Star publishing information about the mayor’s wife that’s only loosely related to the issues at hand. The column attempted to portray it as something that was speaking on behalf of the Ford children. BS. If the Star and/or Ms. DiManno have concerns, they should directly alert the relevant child protection authorities. And I’m not sure that our friends down at One Yonge Street feel much differently than I do. How else to explain the publication, and then disappearing for a number of hours, of the column? I asked that, actually, having contributed my fair share to the stack that’s probably building up on Ms. English’s desk. I originally sent an email asking for clarification on the purchase of the video. I received an email back from Star editor Michael Cooke, notable only for its brevity. Since Star policy, written in their official rulebook and everything, is not to pay for information, I asked whether the Star deemed the video a freelance photo or audiovisual recording, and if so, whether or not standard Star policies involving such transactions, including freelance agreements and invoices, were followed. Mr. Cooke replied: “The Star did not pay for information.” Oh. I see. I later asked for Ms. English’s thoughts on why the DiManno column temporarily disappeared. I have received no reply.

Tyler Anderson / National Post Toronto mayor Rob Ford leaves his office with his wife Renata at City Hall in Toronto, Ontario, November 13, 2013.

Goldsbie: Well, DiManno told Talking Points Memo that it was accidentally posted online before they’d had a chance to request comment from the Fords. (Affording the subject of a story an opportunity to comment ahead of publication is a key component of the “responsible communication” defence against allegations of libel.) I don’t think there’s much question that a Rosie DiManno column is less than an ideal forum in which to divulge such sensitive information. But there’s also something to be said for a person finally coming out and revealing yet another of those dark secrets that have been whispered among certain classes of Torontonians for some time. And given the frequency with which emergency services have visited the Ford household over the years, the situation did not seem to improve much in the face of the hands-off status quo. Is it the media’s role to report on family issues when the family is that of an important person? I’m not sure — but how many years of answering that question in the negative would make a person or an institution complicit?

Selley: Complicit in what? Bad stuff happening in private? It’s either private or it isn’t, surely — you can’t claim to have held a certain principle if you abandon it in extraordinary circumstances. Extraordinary circumstances are where principles get tested. I’m not so much concerned with the content of the story as intrigued to hear what I assume will be a fuller explanation as to why they decided to go with this. If it’s a convincing one, I’ll frankly be rather surprised.

Gurney: Well, that. But also this: if you report it to the police, you aren’t complicit through your silence. If Ms. DiManno or anyone at the Toronto Star has any knowledge that must absolutely be put in the hands of either the police or relevant civil authorities to protect the lives and well-being of others, they should share it directly with said authorities. I think Chris has it right here. It is in such situations, perhaps including a situation where a person of goodwill had shared important knowledge with authorities to no real effect, that principles get tested. For all I know, maybe the Star did run to the police to offer up a full testimony of what they believed had happened. If, however, the police did not take action, I do not believe that’s a green light to just publish all their suspicions. I grant that there might be circumstances in which a journalist or publication would not really have any better option than to just go public and hope some good resulted. I’m not convinced, or even nearly convinced, that this is one of those situations.

Goldsbie: I think you have it backwards. The police (or at least certain parts of it) have a fuller understanding of the Ford picture than does anyone in the media. The concern is that, for whatever reasons, their intervention appears to have been ineffectual. It’s entirely fair to argue that the Toronto Police should receive a benefit of the doubt when weighing the evidence upon which they might act. But at the same time, it’s the responsibility of the media to shine a light on what they believe to be systemic deficiencies. DiManno didn’t make an especially strong case for this being such a circumstance, but that’s what she was getting at: when specific states of affairs appear to be ongoing issues, you can reasonably conclude that something may not be functioning quite as it should.

Gurney: Sorry. No. That issue has been explored right here in the Post, in a column and a news story, in recent days. Neither author felt the need to drag the mayor’s wife and whatever personal issues she may be facing into their files. Ms. DiManno declared in her column that the rules governing when information about the mayor’s wife may be published have changed. But I can’t seem to find any explanation for why they have changed, except the Toronto Star decided that they had. Anyone want to take a guess as to what rules they’ll decide have changed, or no longer apply at all, next?

Goldsbie: Calling it a “game-changer” was typical DiMannoan hyperbole. But since the mayor chose to make the nature of his relationship with his wife a matter of public record, surely that can now be questioned or scrutinized to a degree. The difficulty is determining whether it’s possible to examine that without drawing in other personal elements that on their own would not be the public’s business.

Selley: I’m not puritanical about what media should and shouldn’t be reporting, as long as it’s well-reported and the public is interested in knowing about it. I found DiManno’s piece neither offensive nor particularly revealing. But the Star holds itself up, often quite insufferably, as the arbiter of all that’s good and pure in journalism, and this definitely crossed a certain line. I repeat that I am far more interested in what Kathy English has to say about this than in fretting about the unseemliness of it all. We passed unseemly ages ago.

Although the occasion was awkward — an apology from Mayor Rob Ford for glibly mentioning his marital sex life — on Thursday Toronto got a rare look at Renata Ford, the elusive wife of the embattled chief magistrate.

Standing to the mayor’s right, Ms. Ford shifted uncomfortably, appearing to be inaudibly sighing, as Mr. Ford said for the first time that he was receiving support from a team of “health-care professionals.”

Later, as she walked to her car in the city hall parking garage, she was ambushed by news cameras. “I think my husband said already enough, please respect our privacy,” she said when asked if she had any comment.

When pressed if her husband should step aside or take a leave of absence, she said “that’s why we have elections.”

For most Torontonians, Thursday was the first time they have seen Mr. Ford’s slim, blonde wife since Election Night 2010, when she accompanied her husband to victory celebrations at the Toronto Congress Center.

In the preceding months, she had regularly appeared at his side in Toronto-area campaign stops.

Since he has become mayor, she is rarely photographed with him at local events, but she does accompany him on official business, such as his trip to Guadalajara, Mex., for the Pan American Games or his recent trip to Austin, Tex.

Nevertheless, even those who work closely with the mayor say they have almost no knowledge of Renata Ford’s routines or private life.

Born Renata Brejniak to Polish parents, she met Rob Ford in high school and they were married in 2000 at St. George’s Golf and Country Club, when Mr. Ford was 31, according to a comprehensive Toronto Life profile of her in 2011.

On an episode of Mayor Ford’s weekly radio show on Newstalk 1010 last November, brother Doug referred to her as “the Polack” and “your Polish little princess.”

Before the show was over, however, Doug corrected himself on the playful use of the ethnic slur and said “I’m sure Renata’s gonna give me a good beatin’.”

Ms. Ford’s parents, Tadeusz and Henryka Brejniak, still live only a few blocks away from the Fords’ Etobicoke bungalow.

Although the Ford household has projected an image of stability over the past few months — even as Mr. Ford spirals into an ever-deepening pit of alcohol and drug allegations — it was only five years ago that a 911 call from Renata Ford prompted Mr. Ford to be led away from his house in handcuffs.

Police charged the then councillor with domestic assault, but the Crown later withdrew the charges due to “inconsistencies” in Ms. Ford’s story.

Only hours before the 911 call, Mr. Ford’s lawyer later told the press, Mr. Ford himself had called police over his wife’s “irrational, out-of-control behaviour.”

Leaving the courtroom in May 2008, Mr. Ford said he and his wife were undergoing couples therapy and that he planned to move back into the family home after spending two months living with his mother.

“It’s over with and done with and I’m going to move forward,” said Mr. Ford at the time.

After the episode, Ms. Ford’s parents told the Toronto Star their daughter was “getting help.”

Back in June, a month after the crack video allegations surfaced, Ms. Ford emerged to make some of the only public comments she has uttered during her husband’s mayoral career. She called the Toronto Sun’s Joe Warmington to discuss the regular swarms of reporters outside their house.

“I kind of feel sorry for them. … I look out the window sometimes at 6:30 a.m. and I see them. Sometimes it’s raining,” she said.

As for the Ford’s two young children, Stephanie, 8, and Douglas, 5, Ms. Fold told the newspaper “they just think they are all there because they really love their father.”